by Kevin Kruse
The concept of the open door policy is even written in the US Army’s command policy. Army Regulation 600-20, chapter two paragraph two, instructs, “Commanders will establish an open door policy within their commands…The timing, conduct, and specific procedures of the open door policy are determined by the commander” (US Army 2014).
But even though it’s an official written policy—a requirement of command—soldiers are still making the same risk-to-reward analysis described by professors Detert and Edmondson. And most of them seem to think it’s not worth the risk. A random sampling of views from military message boards include:
“You can’t trust higher-ups. They often say they have open door policies. Their open door policy should be used with extreme caution. Whatever you say will be used against you. I have met a lot of higher-ups with ‘open door policies,’ but from their records, the ‘open door’ policy felt more like a ‘trap door’ policy.” (K 2012)
“The most common problem is that troops feel there will be backlash after using the open door policy. Maybe not directly, but indirectly” (Shephard 2014).
Even in the business world, it’s easy to understand how leapfrogging the chain of command comes at great risk.
Let’s say you have a problem with your boss, Fred. Or maybe you just have a great idea that you feel Fred isn’t taking action on. So you go “above his head” to discuss the issue with his boss, Judy. In most organizations, one of two scenarios are likely to play out and neither of them is good for you.
JUDY: “Did you take this issue to Fred? You did? Okay, well, I agree with his decision, now get back to work.” And now I know you are a whiny troublemaking employee with bad judgment.
Or,
JUDY: “Did you take this issue to Fred, your boss? You did? Well, I’m glad you persisted and brought it to my attention. I’m going to override his decision and let him know that we need to take more seriously in the future.”
And then your boss, Fred, will be thinking about you: I always knew they were a whiny troublemaking employee.
Can your boss fire you? Probably not. Can he ignore you, give plum assignments to others on your team, give your work extra scrutiny, deny your request to work from home on a snow day, and otherwise make you miserable? Yep.
You lose in either scenario.
WHY ATHLETES DON’T TALK
It isn’t often that a Rutgers sports team gets highlighted by ESPN or receives national attention. As a 1989 Rutgers College graduate I should know. So I wasn’t entirely surprised in 2013 when the national coverage of Rutgers turned out to be for a very bad reason.
ESPN’s Outside the Lines program aired highlights from hours of video showing Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice verbally and physically abusing players during practice sessions (Van Natta 2013). Rice can be seen pushing several players, almost choking one and kicking another, and throwing basketballs at their heads from just a few feet away. Verbally, he belittled them with obscenities and homophobic slurs. Initially Rutgers fined Rice and suspended him for three games; once the video went viral, Rice was fired. The player abuse at Rutgers lasted from 2010 to 2012 before it was discovered.
More disturbing are the cases of young athletes being sexually abused by coaches or staff members. Jerry Sandusky at Penn State. Larry Nassar, former USA Gymnastics team doctor, who was convicted of sexually abusing over a hundred girls for more than twenty years.
Often, when these horrific incidents eventually come to light, I hear adults—parents—say something like, “Why didn’t the kids tell someone?”
Once again: risk versus reward.
Players fear being benched, cut from the team, hazed, or even worse. College athletes are afraid of losing scholarships. In cases of sexual abuse there are the associated emotions of embarrassment and shame. All this is weighed against the very real possibility that accusations won’t be believed, or the abuser won’t be stopped. Indeed, in the case of Nassar it turns out many of the young gymnasts had told parents, coaches, and trainers of their abuse but in many cases they were just told that they were lucky to be in the care of such an esteemed doctor, he was giving them legitimate medical care, and they shouldn’t pursue it further.
An “open door” policy is passive. What’s needed is an active, safe communication policy. How many athletic directors send anonymous surveys to all their players specifically asking about hazing, bullying, or abuse? Could a player upset about not getting more game time use the anonymous survey to make false accusations? Of course. And a single data point could be viewed as what it is. But if an athletic director, a league president, whoever, sees a large percentage of players making the same accusation, then it can be investigated and acted upon as necessary.
I’D BETTER CHECK WITH THE BOSS FIRST
For some employees the problem isn’t fear of going through the open door, it’s that they always want to go through that door. In their willingness to share all their problems and ideas and decisions with management, these individuals become overly dependent on company leaders. In essence, they become afraid to make most decisions without first running them by their superiors.
Legendary leadership coach Marshall Goldsmith explores the reasons for this in an essay he wrote for the Harvard Business Review (Goldsmith 2010). As Goldsmith points out, employees know their jobs better than anyone else in an organization. But not everyone is comfortable making decisions, and here is the critical point:
It isn’t possible for a leader to “empower” someone to be accountable and make good decisions. People have to empower themselves. Your role is to encourage and support the decision-making environment, and to give employees the tools and knowledge they need to make and act upon their own decisions. By doing this, you help your employees reach an empowered state.
Oftentimes, an open door policy is a lazy (and inefficient) substitute for the initial investment of training and attention that your employees need. When you give your people the tools and coaching they need to make good decisions, that’s what they’ll do.
In contrast, if you neglect those people in favor of a policy where they can just come get you when they need you, you hinder their development and ability to make decisions.
Nick, a manager in a family business in Australia, tried to modernize the company culture partly through a wide-open door policy. He described the outcome:
I was working seventy-plus hours a week, I had unwittingly created a culture of dependence whenever even the smallest problem arose…The stronger (more valuable) staff members did not feel empowered or even trusted in their roles and were more likely to consider leaving. And the weaker (less valuable) staff members only grew more dependent. Which meant the stronger staff would leave and the weaker ones would stay. It would appear that my open door management policy had basically become a mechanism by which staff could delegate their problems back onto management!
As a leader, you have a responsibility to pass on valuable knowledge and experience through good training and coaching—at appropriate times. But leaving the door open discourages your people from appropriate bias-to-action and limits the opportunities they need to grow.
DRAMA AND THERAPY
This productivity problem is magnified when limits aren’t placed on what the open door should be used for.
I interviewed leadership expert and bestselling author Cy Wakeman for The LEADx Leadership Show about the cost of lost productivity that comes from workplace drama. She amusingly told me that people drive through the open door policy in their BMWs—Bitching, Moaning, and Whining. She said, “I realized pretty quickly that the open door was a portal for drama. It catered to ego, fueled feelings of victimhood, and contributed to low morale” (Wakeman 2017).
Paul is a plant manager who shared with me his challenges with team members who bring in personal issues. He sa
id:
[It’s] a complete double-edged sword. On the one hand, I know for the most part what makes my employees tick, and I try to be as open and honest with them as I can about things. On the other hand, I’ve had to sit and listen to men cry about what their girlfriend or wife did to them, how disrespected they feel, why they have to have the next day off, and the list goes on. Because I probably went a little too far with my open door policy the line between an understanding boss and a “might-be-a-friend” has been blurred.
I once had a submarine commander tell me that any person under his command could sink his sub, so it was his job to know exactly what was going on with everyone on board—at both a professional and personal level. But if your team doesn’t carry the same risks, having an open door that allows people to enter for any reason can quickly spiral out of control.
A PRODUCTIVITY NIGHTMARE FOR MANAGERS
Employees aren’t the only ones harmed by traditional open door policies. In fact, it’s team leaders and executives who reap the most adverse effects. As you might imagine, the open door policy makes for a productivity nightmare. Various research studies indicate the typical office worker is interrupted fifty to sixty times per day, and the average time between interruptions is about three minutes.
A manager named Connie told me her team complains if she isn’t always around and available. Her frustration comes through in her email:
I am a manager with an open door policy. The biggest downside I am facing is that I can’t get things done. Every task I want to work on takes forever to be completed—this of course affects my productivity, my emails, and my sense of achievement.
Another manager, Tina, told me, “Although I support the open door policy, it means that every time I am interrupted it takes me fifteen minutes to get back to what I was doing.”
Researchers who study productivity have varying estimates of the impact of interruptions. On the high side, Gloria Mark, a professor of informatics at the University of California, found that it takes an office worker an average of twenty-five minutes to fully return to a task after being interrupted (Mark et al. 2008). And that research doesn’t address how interruptions affect the quality of our work.
It doesn’t take a mathematician to see how even a few unplanned meetings can destroy your flow over the course of a day.
SHOULD THE OPEN DOOR BE SLAMMED SHUT?
So with all the problems that come with an open door policy, is it time to slam these doors completely shut? Should leaders refuse unscheduled one-on-one meetings? Should they remain distant and aloof?
Of course not.
The danger is in poorly trained managers accepting the open door policy in its most simplistic definition. Many methods can be used to enhance the policy or to supplement it to fulfill the goals of transparency, collaboration, and trust. The open door policy can be fixed.
OPEN DOOR SOLUTION #1: SCHEDULED OFFICE HOURS
As we’ve seen, traditional open door policies can quickly lead to major productivity losses for managers and executives. But what if a simple tweak could maintain all the benefits of the open door policy, without being a productivity killer?
If your door is always open, even figuratively, you never know what your day is going to look like. In contrast, keeping the door open only during limited and preset times allows you to keep control and prevents others from interrupting your flow. Additionally, by reducing the opportunities of being available, you force your people to trust their instincts on smaller matters and to seek guidance or advice only if the issue is large enough.
You may consider setting one day a week as your “open door” day. Choosing Monday has the advantage of making sure everyone has the information or decisions they need to have a productive week. If you’re already using your Mondays for one-on-one meetings (a very good practice), then Friday would be a good day to choose enabling everyone to end the week by clearing their mind.
Others I know choose one hour each day to be their “open door” time. If you try this, consider your own productivity needs first. When are you most productive? For most of us, that would be in the morning. You may consider your “maker” hours to be before lunch and your “manager” hours after lunch.
OPEN DOOR SOLUTION #2: SET THE GROUND RULES
Pope Francis might have an open door policy, but if you want to speak with him in his office, you’ll walk past a sign that reads, VIETATO LAMENTARSI. In English, COMPLAINING FORBIDDEN (Tornielli 2017).
The Italian newspaper La Stampa ran a picture of this sign on the pope’s apartment door, given to him by an Italian self-help author, Salvo Noe. In small print the sign also reads, “Violators are subject to a syndrome of always feeling like a victim and the consequent reduction of your sense of humor and capacity to solve problems.”
Although displayed in jest, it’s a valid reminder to bring the pope possible solutions along with your problems.
Karen Baetzel, CEO of BattleAxe Consulting, spent thirty years in the US Navy as an aviator. She told me that she set specific ground rules for the men and women in her command:
I think the unqualified open door is an invitation to organizational turmoil. What I think is much better policy is a “half-open door,” and when I was commanding officer, I would explain exactly what that meant. It meant you could come to me:
When the traditional chain of command is not working the way you know it is supposed to work, not when you didn’t get the answer you wanted
When you think something unsafe, illegal, or un-American is going on
You understand the consequences of misusing or trivializing the privilege
Nick, a manager in Australia, discovered that his wide-open door policy was leading to dependency, he implemented the “two-solution” rule. He explained, “At the very least, all of our staff has now been made aware that they are never to come to management with a problem, unless they can propose two or three possible solutions. If they can’t, I ask them to go away and come back to me when they can.”
And what about those leapfrog meetings? You know, someone from several levels “down” the organizational chart has leapfrogged over her boss and into your office. One anonymous commander in the US Navy described his approach on the RallyPoint message board (LCDR 2016):
If what they bring up is something that is a CoC (chain of command) issue, I always ask them, “Have you asked your chain of command?” If the answer is no, I send them off to utilize what the military has in place for a reason. If the answer is yes, I ask them if they’ve utilized their entire chain. I have yet to see an issue that couldn’t be resolved by utilizing the command structure.
And for those individuals who have a gift for noticing everything that could be better—and bringing it to your attention—simply agree with them and put them in charge of the solution. In recent years I’ve exclaimed:
“You’re right, Carl, our proposal pricing worksheet is far from perfect. Why don’t you take a crack at adding the functionality you are looking for and let me look at it a month from today.”
“You’re right, James, we might be missing an opportunity to enter the K-12 market. Why don’t you do some research and take first crack at a business plan and we’ll review it together.”
“You’re right, Mike, our writers should understand the sales process better. Why don’t you convene a series of ‘lunch and learns’ so we can close that gap.”
Not surprisingly, many of these “issues” seem to disappear when the person who noticed the problem has to come up with the solution.
OPEN DOOR SOLUTION #3: THE WEEKLY ONE-ON-ONE
When it comes to forging quality communication that benefits both you and your direct reports, few tools are more powerful than the weekly, prescheduled one-on-one.
Scheduled one-on-ones take away t
he “unexpected” element of an open door policy and provide something that would otherwise be missing: the chance to prepare. By preparing for each of these meetings, you can tailor your assistance to the needs of the individual, maximizing personal impact.
Just remember the one-on-one is actually the employee’s meeting. You’re here for them. Great questions include: What’s on your mind? What are your most important tasks for the week? How can I help? What do you need to be successful?
Furthermore, these weekly meetings enable you to build rapport and stay in touch on big personal items on an ongoing basis. As a type A introvert, none of my team members would ever consider me warm and fuzzy. But my first question every Monday is usually a simple, “How was your weekend?”
OPEN DOOR SOLUTION #4: A CADENCE OF COMMUNICATION
Although the one-on-one is of primary importance, it’s just one piece of the puzzle if you’re looking to build a culture of effective communication. Additional meetings should include:
Weekly team meetings
Monthly division meetings
Quarterly all-company town halls
The goal should be to build a scheduled rhythm of communication that encompasses all employees, no matter how “high” your position in the hierarchy. These group meetings provide information or context to all team members.
